Who I Work Best With
Couples ready to participate honestly.
This work is a strong fit for motivated partners who are willing to participate honestly, tolerate some discomfort, and work collaboratively with the process.
About Chad Stiles, PhD, LMFT
Trauma may have happened to one or both of you. Both of you may now be living with its effects.
Chad works with couples where trauma has entered the relationship, even when the original trauma did not occur within the relationship itself. The work focuses on the pattern that keeps taking over and what helps both partners respond differently.
Why I Do This Work
When trauma enters a relationship, both partners can end up carrying its effects.
Trauma can shape how people protect themselves, connect, trust, and stay present with one another. A relationship can become organized around recurring conflict, withdrawal, defensiveness, shutdown, or emotional distance, even when both partners still care deeply.
Chad’s focus is trauma-affected relationships and couples who feel stuck in patterns they understand but have not been able to change. The aim is not to reduce a complex relationship to a diagnosis or a single event. It is to understand what happens between you when the relationship feels threatened.
Relevant Clinical Experience
Experience that stays connected to the relationship in front of you.
Chad is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with both a Master’s degree and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He is licensed to provide care for clients located in Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia.
For 13 years, he has supported sexual trauma survivors in advocacy, care coordination, and case management roles. Before becoming a licensed therapist, he held a Defense Sexual Assault Advocate Certification Program certification while serving as a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator.
He also served in the military for 20 years and then worked for the government for an additional 5 years. That experience informs a careful understanding of the pressures military and veteran couples may carry into a relationship.
Why This Matters for Couples
Protection can look like distance, intensity, or a loss of trust.
Trauma-related protection can show up in a relationship as withdrawal, hypervigilance, defensiveness, emotional shutdown, fear, difficulty trusting, or difficulty staying emotionally present. These reactions are not universal, and they do not make either partner the problem.
Experience with trauma matters because the work needs to move at a careful pace while still helping both partners look honestly at the interactional cycle. That is how a couple can begin to see what each person is protecting and what the relationship needs next.
For partners who want to stop making each other the problem.
My Approach
Chad’s approach is trauma-informed, IFS-informed, and solution-focused. Rather than deciding which partner is at fault, the work slows down the pattern between you, names the protective responses inside it, and creates room to practice a different response together.
Personal Perspective
Respect for the work of a long-term relationship.
Chad has been married for more than 20 years. He keeps the focus on your relationship, while bringing a grounded respect for the ongoing work of staying connected over time.
Licenses Held
Licensed across four states.
- ColoradoLicense # MFT.0003103
- PennsylvaniaLicense # MF001890
- South CarolinaLicense # 8383
- VirginiaLicense # 0717002631
Safety and Fit
Couples work needs enough safety for both partners to participate freely.
Chad does not work with couples where violence is still actively occurring or has recently occurred. Couples are screened for this during initial and follow-up meetings. He also does not work with sexual offenders, who are referred to a certified sexual offender treatment professional in their locality.
Begin With Clarity
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